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Reviews
Circus Meets Symphony, with Delightful Results

LONDON—Spring is in the air in London and so is orchestral music courtesy of Multitudes, the ten-day multidisciplinary arts festival at the Southbank Centre. Underway since April 23, the event is presenting nine orchestras, many of them SBC … »
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The Critic, the Donor, and the Resurrection of Giants...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.— What transpired in Sioux Falls last weekend was a testament to the power of words. In 2022, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross praised the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) as “bolder and savvier in its … »
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In Juilliard's Carmelites, the Parts Are Greater than the Sum of the Whole

During the rehearsal period for Juilliard’s mounting of Dialogues des Carmelites , the federal government revoked the visa of a participating student. This encounter with the current administration might have been expected to lend a degree … »
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A Blowout Birthday Bash,
A Hero's Sendoff

SAN FRANCISCO—On a night that began with baby pictures and ended with a balloon drop, San Francisco Symphony’s cherished former Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas got a farewell send-off on April 26 at a packed Davies Symphony Hall. … »
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Kentridge Dominates Shostakovich

LONDON—If the opening concert of Multitudes , a ten-day multidisciplinary arts festival running at London’s Southbank Centre, was a seamless fusion of classical music and circus, the April 24 second night was a rather different kettle … »
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Recordings: Oppression Defied

Musicalizing difficult subject matter can pose tough challenges. These two recordings are good examples of when composers get it right. Songs in Flight Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Songs in Flight was inspired by Freedom on the Move, a database … »
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LA Phil Premieres Carlos Simon's Good News Mass

LOS ANGELES—Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass , a de facto 50-minute symphonic gospel service combining aspects of the Catholic Mass and Pentecostal fervor, had its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall on April 17. A co-commission … »
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Recordings: Classics in New Contexts

Classical and contemporary music can make for awkward bedfellows, but these two recent recordings show how one genre can really illuminate the another. Schubert/Beatles draws unpredicted parallels between the father of the German Lied and the … »
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Chicago's Preeminent Music Ensembles Turn to Terpsichore

CHICAGO— In the 1990s, no less an eminence than Alfred Brendel urged Twyla Tharp to choreograph Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Why? “It’s so funny,” he reportedly told the contemporary ballet dancemaker. Funny? … »
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Danish String Quartet In Its First & Last Doppelgänger

The Danish String Quartet has forged a specialty of assembling programs that bring composers from separate eras into conversation with each other. The five-part Prism series (2019-2023) grouped one each of Beethoven’s late quartets with … »
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